My 2010 Fantasy Baseball First Pick: My Perfect Draft

So you’ve been doing your research, prepping for your draft…or one of many drafts. You have your cheat sheets and your list of sleepers. You are determined you’re going to have the perfect draft.

Yet, you approach your draft apprehensively, because you’ve been here before, armed to the teeth with stats and expert advice, and when the draft was over you looked upon your roster and sighed.

Not perfect. Nowhere near perfect.

So why does it seem like those other morons in the league seem to have fared better? Quick, sign up for another team. You’ll get it right this time.

This is how managers end up with a dozen teams each year.

So how does one complete the perfect draft?

Well, first you have to change your view of what a perfect draft is. Let’s start with a draft based on average draft pick (ADP). For the purposes of our article we will give YOU, the reader, the sixth pick.

Below you will find the first 10 rounds of a 10 team draft based on ADP in a 5 roto league. Your pick location is in Bold , and I have offered three options for each round. The results are at the bottom of the draft.

After the first 10 rounds off the draft, all three potential teams are off to an excellent start, with a nice blend of power, speed, and average. I focused on getting my offense done first, while picking up a couple of solid starting pitchers.

Any combination in any of those rounds would have been the foundation for a dream fantasy team. The trick is balancing patience with knowledge.

You will note that in the first round, for my third team option I dipped outside the first round draft picks to grab Roy Halladay . Tim Lincecum would have been an excellent choice, too, but I have more faith in Halladay's situation this year; he's on a solid offensive team, and his switch to a new league with no DH. Which brings me this:

Do NOT get caught up in draft position and rankings. Follow your instincts, and the map you have drawn up for your draft. If you make changes as you go, do it based on what makes sense for your team, not because X player is being taken two rounds before the guy you think will help you best.

Finally, you'll note I did not draft a single closer in the first 100 picks. That is a rule I follow religiously. In the first 10 rounds, six closers were taken. That means there are 24 more options for the second half, while you have the heart of your team already built.